Questions about B-29 operational range, VVS, VVS intercept capability if Operation Unthinkable happen.

ThomasP said:

A bad aspect of this was that the Soviets sometimes sent food to the occupied countries and exported/sold food to foreign nations rather than supply some of their pre-WWII member countries such as Belarus and Ukraine, and to a degree the more remote Russian populations.

What would the West have done in the face of mass starvation in the Eastern European countries as they moved toward the Soviet Union? What could they do?

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And if the war continues, a new famine is coming.

GrauGeist said:

The BI would be more trouble than it's worth, to be honest.

On the otherhand, the VVS did have lend-lease P-47Ds. Those may have been useful.

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I put myself in the shoes of the Soviet military leadership and think: what can we do against the Allied bombing offensive?
I know how bad it can hit - there is plenty of evidence on the ground in our occupation zone.
I have no illusions about the capability of the domestic industry and engineering, - whatever nice airframes are offered by the designers, the problems with the engines are not resolved. High octane fuel will be in deficit.
And the days of a propeller aircraft are counted. What are the options?
Operation Osoaviakhim can be conducted immediately after the Unthinkable begins and Cambridge Five and other spies can be given orders to boost their efforts. Yet I don't know how valuable German engineers will be and spy rings will not send me complete aircraft or engines.
I can put my hopes into RD-1 or another (German?) engine attached to new fighters (La-7R-2, Yak-3R, Su-7 etc). But I understand that this is a temporary solution.
Now, what about this BI rocket fighter... It didn't impress anyone and was closed recently. However, it was a small-scale program with poor funding, outside of the main attention of the Ministry of Aviation Industry. Why not resume the program and provide it with all the resources needed?
By the way, if I am Shakurin or Novikov, I know that not just my career but my life is at stake here.

Juha3 said:

And it was mostly rather shallow with thousands laid mines and if Soviets planned to attack West surely their subs would have had mined the narrow straits leading into it.

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If those subs are "allowed" to do so... I just quickly looked into the stats of the Baltic Navy. 66 subs in 1941, 28 in January 1945 (20 serviceable), 44 lost in 1941-45. Kriegsmarine provided support to Courland Pocket almost until the end in May 1945 and lost one U-boat and 3 small combat ships to the Soviet subs operations (mines including) in 1945.

Dimlee said:

I put myself in the shoes of the Soviet military leadership and think: what can we do against the Allied bombing offensive?

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Use the best Soviet fighters - T-34 tanks on enemy airfields up to the Channel.

Dimlee said:

And the days of a propeller aircraft are counted. What are the options?

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In 1945, this was not obvious.

Dimlee said:

I can put my hopes into RD-1 or another (German?) engine attached to new fighters (La-7R-2, Yak-3R, Su-7 etc). But I understand that this is a temporary solution.

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It's not a solution at all. Absolutely useless experiments. Soviet jet aviation started with Nene and Derwent - everything before could be safely considered experimental/training, but not combat. Studying German heritage takes at least a year. The actual combat airplanes were the Yak-3PD and the I-225 - the latter even with an unfinished engine. They could be mass produced in late 1945.

Dimlee said:

Now, what about this BI rocket fighter... It didn't impress anyone and was closed recently. However, it was a small-scale program with poor funding, outside of the attention of the Ministry of Aviation Industry.

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With zero efficiency and an equally zero prospect of improving it.

Dimlee said:

Why not resume the program and provide it with all the resources needed?

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No resources would help. This is a completely dead-end direction. Even the much more advanced Me 163 had about the same effectiveness.

Dimlee said:

By the way, if I am Shakurin or Novikov, I know that not just my career but my life is at stake here.

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For them, everything had already been decided. Both fell out of favor with Stalin because of the terrible quality of Soviet airplanes during the war. No experimental projects could save them from prison.

Dimlee said:

I just quickly looked into the stats of the Baltic Navy. 66 subs in 1941, 28 in January 1945 (20 serviceable), 44 lost in 1941-45.

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A fabulous example of the incompetence of Soviet admirals (Tributs in the first place). The only force that performed worse than the Soviet aviation during the war was the Soviet Navy. But the use of mines (though rather primitive) was probably the only thing that the Soviet Navy could do more or less effectively.

bf109xxl said:

Use the best Soviet fighters - T-34 tanks on enemy airfields up to the Channel.

In 1945, this was not obvious.

It's not a solution at all. Absolutely useless experiments. Soviet jet aviation started with Nene and Derwent - everything before could be safely considered experimental/training, but not combat. Studying German heritage takes at least a year. The actual combat airplanes were the Yak-3PD and the I-225 - the latter even with an unfinished engine. They could be mass produced in late 1945.

With zero efficiency and an equally zero prospect of improving it.

No resources would help. This is a completely dead-end direction. Even the much more advanced Me 163 had about the same effectiveness.

For them, everything had already been decided. Both fell out of favor with Stalin because of the terrible quality of Soviet airplanes during the war. No experimental projects could save them from prison.

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In my example, I'm in the summer of 1945 without the benefit of hindsight. BI or a similar program is probably the dead end, maybe so. But I don't know this yet and I am looking for an urgent solution to the problem. Emergency fighter is one of the solutions.

Dimlee said:

In my example, I'm in the summer of 1945 without the benefit of hindsight. BI or a similar program is probably the dead end, maybe so. But I don't know this yet and I am looking for an urgent solution to the problem. Emergency fighter is one of the solutions.

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The real solution was the production of the Yak-3PD and the I-225. Both fighters were ready for mass production already in 1945. The value of the BI program can be judged by the operational use of the Me 163 which was also much better but practically useless.

This is a link to a report by British Joint Planning Staff dated 22 May 1945 in relation to Operation Unthinkable showing the first few pages. See National Archives CAB 120-691.


And extracts from CIGS Brooke's Diaries.

24 May 1945
[...]
This evening I went carefully through the Planners' report on the possibility of taking on Russia should trouble arise in our future discussions with her. We were instructed to carry out this investigation. The idea is of course quite fantastic and the chances of success quite impossible. There is no doubt that from now onwards Russia is all powerful in Europe.

31 May 1945:
We again discussed the 'unthinkable war' against Russia at this morning's COS, and became more convinced than ever that it is 'unthinkable'!